


Le Morte d'Agreste

by takethembystorm



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Kingsman, kingsman!AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 02:18:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6451570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takethembystorm/pseuds/takethembystorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Contains spoilers for the movie Kingsman.</p><p>In the aftermath of what is becoming known as the Valentine’s Massacre, the world is a much scarier place, and those best able to hold it together—the Kingsmen—are scattered, disorganized, and leaderless.  It’s up to the Kingsmen’s two newest agents, Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste, to bring some sanity back into the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The New Knights

The funeral is a quiet, private affair, with only half a dozen in attendance.  Adrien tosses a handful of soil—well, mud, given the drizzle—atop his father’s coffin as the priest drones on, listening to it splat.

He should feel worse about this, he thinks.  He should feel something, at least.

Gabriel Agreste, world-famous fashion designer and secretly, Arthur of the Kingsmen, is dead, slain by the hand of Adrien Agreste.  He considers briefly if it really counts as murder if all he did was turn an attempted betrayal upon itself.

As the gravediggers fill in the hole and the others file away, Marinette walks up beside him.  She doesn’t attempt to take his hand, just stands there, her collar turned up against the weather, close enough that he can practically feel the warmth of her body through his heavy coat.

“You all right?” she asks.

He shrugs.  He shouldn’t feel all right.  He’s a patricide, for fuck’s sake, and it shouldn’t matter that his father had habitually neglected him for twenty-five years until he was needed to block Galahad’s commoner candidate—he glances sidelong at Marinette—from ever becoming a Kingsman.  It shouldn’t matter that his father had the emotional range of a crocodile, that his approval had been dependent on whether his son would murder an innocent animal.  On principle alone he shouldn’t feel all right.

Marinette stands next to him until the grave is filled and Fu joins them.

“Lancelot,” Fu says quietly, addressing Marinette.  “Please return to headquarters.  I would like a private word with Adrien.”

“Yes, sir,” Marinette says.  She touches Adrien lightly, her fingertips gliding along his shoulder, before she turns and leaves.  Adrien hears her motorcycle cough to life a minute later before it roars and rolls off.

“You’re going to make me a job offer,” Adrien says to Fu.

“Yes,” Fu says.  The both of them keep their gazes on the grave.  “There have never been many Kingsmen, and the loss of even one is disastrous to our capabilities.”

Fu sighs.  “The world is tearing itself to pieces right now,” he says, “even with calmer heads calling for peace.  All of the other Kingsmen aside from yourself and Lancelot are MIA at the moment, and as a result the selection process has rather been blown straight to hell.  None of the other bases have been left untouched, and our support staff are operating at severely reduced capacity.”

“I haven’t accepted your offer yet,” Adrien says.  “I’m not technically a Kingsman yet.”

“Yet,” Fu says.  He holds out a manila folder without looking; Adrien takes it.  “You have a sense of duty as strong as Galahad’s.  Your father got that right, at least.”

Adrien opens the folder and glances down at the first page.

“What,” he snarls lowly, “the _fuck._   Is this?”

“Your job offer,” Fu says.

“Is this a fucking _joke_?  You think this is fucking _funny_?”  He closes the folder and lashes out, slapping it into Fu’s chest.  “Forget it, _Merlin_.”

“Keep it,” Fu says, catching the folder as Adrien withdraws his hand.

“Go fuck yourse—“

“Keep.  It,” Fu repeats, steel edging his words.  He holds it out again; Adrien snatches it from him after a second, folds it roughly in half, and stuffs it into a pocket.

Fu sighs through his nostrils.  “You’ve read Mallory, have you not?”

“Of course.”

“I suggest that you reacquaint yourself with his work.  You will understand then.”

Fu turns and walks away towards the graveyard’s exit.  Adrien stands there a while longer, until he hears the coughing rumble of Fu’s car as he drives away.

Then Adrien takes his leave as well.

* * *

One mostly sleepless night and one mid-morning meeting with the family lawyer later, Adrien finds himself sitting down at the long table in the Kingsmen offices, Fu opposite him, the old man’s fingers raised in a steeple.

“I reread it,” Adrien says.  “Still have no idea what you’re on about.”

“With Arthur there was but war and strife,” Fu says.  He purses his lips.

“That’s not the quote,” Adrien says.

“I’m paraphrasing,” Fu says, bobbing his head to one side.  “You remember at least what Merlin’s role was?”

“Guidance.”

“In a word, yes.  Hence why I am usually in charge of training recruits.”  Fu interlaces his fingers and brings his hands down.  His signet ring clicks gently against the table.

“You will never be Galahad,” Fu says.  “You will never be Arthur.”  He raises a hand as he sees the lines tighten around Adrien’s eyes and the corners of his mouth.  “This is because, as recent events have shown, guidance is not enough to ensure that Kingsmen remains pure to its cause.  Sometimes the shears must be employed to trim the tree back into shape.  And failing that, sometimes the fire must be brought to bear.”

Fu looks Adrien fully in the eyes.  “As you know, the point of the final test is to see how willingly a Kingsman will obey orders.  But you defied them.  Even though it was your father asking.  Even though this was the first chance in years you had to attain his favor.  Why?”

“Because it was wrong,” Adrien says with a shrug of one shoulder.  “What did he ever do to me?”

“How is Plagg, by the way?” Fu asks.

“With Nathalie for now.”

“Good.”  Fu says nothing after that, letting the silence build.

“You want me to be a wetworks man,” Adrien says a minute later with a hint of a snarl.

“All Kingsman agents are wetworks men, technically—“

“You know damn well what I’m talking about,” Adrien says.  “I’m the fire.  If any of the other agents refuse to listen to you you’re going to whip me out and burn them down.”

“No,” Fu says.  “If any of us—if the next Galahad, or Percival, or Gawain, or god forbid Lancelot or myself—if _any_ of us step out of line, if _any_ of us attempt to sacrifice people for the greater good again you will burn us down.”

The old man’s voice remains level and calm, but there is a tired, aching disgust in his suddenly sagging features.

“So,” Fu says.  “Do you accept?”

Adrien takes the much-abused folder from his coat.  He places it on the table, opens it, tries to smooth the creases in the paper inside.  Fu holds out an embossed fountain pen to him.

Adrien takes the pen, and with a moment’s hesitation, signs.

Fu nods as he accepts the folder.  He places it to the side and presses a concealed button on the tabletop.

“Bring Lancelot in, if you please,” he calls to the room at large.

“Yes sir,” someone says.  After a minute the door swings open soundlessly and Marinette walks in.  She shuts it behind her and takes a seat next to Adrien.

“A new Arthur must be chosen,” Fu says without preamble.  “But before that we must first ascertain the fate of the remaining agents.  Thanks to Valentine’s paranoia, we can be assured that any Kingsman who turned traitor is now dead, the problem being, of course, that we do not know which of them turned traitor.”

Fu turns his attention to the painting behind them; Adrien and Marinette turn as they don their glasses.

“You will first be deployed to the United States.  Tristan was deployed there some weeks ago to investigate an apocalyptic cult willing to produce and use chemical and biological weapons in order to bring about the end of the world.”

He nods at the two as they turn back to him.  “Find him, bring him back if he’s alive,” Fu says.

“Yes, sir,” Lancelot says, tucking her glasses into a breast pocket.

“Yes, sir,” Mordred says as he stands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of Adrien as Mordred is taken from [here](http://diggingfordragons.tumblr.com/post/117046481271/eggsy-as-mordred).


	2. Arrangements

“Your father’s will was explicit that should he pass, all his holdings would be divided equally between your mother and yourself,” Nathalie says.  “It goes without saying that you will inherit the entirety of his estate.”

Adrien isn’t paying attention to her when she looks up from the paperwork.  His eyes are glazed over with distant thought, focused at a point just over her left shoulder; his chin is supported on the heel of a hand while the fingers of the other beat a slow, staccato beat on the table.

Nathalie’s lips thin as she closes the folder.

“For what it’s worth, Adrien,” she says, as gently as she knows how, “I am sorry for your loss.  Your father was a remarkable man, and the world is poorer for his loss.”

Perhaps Adrien senses how trite and scripted the words are.  His fingers drum out one final _tap-tap-tap-tap_ on the table, coming down a little harder than they had before.  He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

When he opens them again, they’re focused on her like sunlight on an ant.  Nathalie leans back from him, very slightly.

“No, he wasn’t,” Adrien says.

“Pardon?”

“My father was not a remarkable man.”  His voice comes out flat and calm.

“With respect, Adrien—“

“Do you think that a remarkable man would have abandoned his son almost the day that he was born?” he continues.  “Do you think a remarkable man would have said maybe an average of a thousand words to his son a year?”

Adrien cocks his head to the side.  “Do you think that a remarkable man,” he says in the same tone, “would send his son away for more than a decade, only calling him back when he needed something from him?”

Nathalie doesn’t really have an answer to that.  She tries nevertheless.  “I’m sure he had his reasons,” she says weakly.

Adrien stands so suddenly that his chair topples backwards, hitting the hardwood floor with a _crack_.  “Are you allergic to pet dander?”

“No, but—“

“Good.  I have a dog now, a black pug.  His name is Plagg.”

“Adrien—“

“He has his meals at 0800, 1300, and 1900, there are cans in the pantry.  He goes for two walks a day, once after breakfast and once after dinner and tends to relieve himself then.”

“Adrien—“

“I have left numbers for his veterinarian and groomer on my worktable.”

“Adrien, I am your lawyer, not your, your—“  Nathalie’s protests trail away under the steady pressure of his gaze.

“If you are employed by me then you will refer to me as _sir_ ,” Adrien says flatly.  “And I’m going to be gone quite often for the foreseeable future, and I’d rather that he be in the care of someone I trust.”

Nathalie looks down.  “Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Nathalie.  I’ll send instructions to the Gorilla later for how I want my assets disposed of.”

Adrien walks briskly over to the door.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an important meeting to attend.”


	3. Present and Accounted For

“Right, so the plan was to swoop in with those nifty wing packs,” Marinette says.

“Check,” Adrien replies.

“Find the room where Bors was being kept,” she continues, “break in and grab him.”

“Check.”

“Then get out before anyone realizes what’s happening and rendezvous with Percival two kilometers west.”

A bullet cracks into the wall beside them; Adrien leans out slightly and cuts the shooter down with a trio of shots to the chest.  The pistol clicks on empty, and he sighs and tosses the weapon aside.

“Not check.”

“I blame your luck,” Marinette says, shaking her head.  “Percival, you have eyes on us yet?”

“Flyby in five seconds,” Percival says, his voice very slightly tinny over their earpieces.  Five seconds later, on cue, they hear the distant roar of a jet passing overhead, and on cue, an aerial map appears in their glasses, with the positions of enemy militants marked out with red dots.

Adrien studies it for a moment.  “Barracks on the north, they’re coming mostly from the northeast,” he murmurs.  “How many rounds do you have left?”

“One clip, untouched, one in the chamber.”

“Make them count, then,” Adrien says as he pulls a second pistol, a short-barreled Glock 37, from its holster.  “Next time, we’re bringing something with compatible ammo.”

Without a further word, he bursts out from cover and vanishes around the corner.

“Head towards the rendezvous,” Percival barks as Marinette starts to follow.  “Adrien can handle himself.”

A loud _b-koom, b-koom_ and an abruptly cut-off rattle of automatic fire echoes around the compound as Marinette curses, grabs Bors by the collar, and starts dragging the unconscious man westwards, her pistol at the ready.

It’s a tense few minutes as she hears another few increasingly distant _b-kooms_ from Adrien’s heavy pistol, but whatever he’s doing is working; she hasn’t seen a single militant since his departure.  She keeps her attention fixed on the little blinking green dot that shows his location.

A bullet whines past her head, and she flinches away from a sudden flash of pain on the left side of her face.  She realizes a second later, as she puts two shots into the man shooting at her, that the bullet had in fact been close enough to shatter the frame of her glasses.

“Just lost my HUD,” Marinette shouts.  “Percival!  Where is he now?”

“Damn your eyes, girl, I don’t know,” the agent replies tersely.  “I just lost his transponder.”

Marinette’s heart stops for a moment before Percival adds, tone marginally brighter, “Ah, got him.  He’s east of your position, hundred meters and closing on you.”

“You did that on purpose,” she mutters as she turns and starts lugging Bors in the indicated direction.  “You have an LZ yet?”

“Not one that isn’t currently infested with RPG-wielding madmen,” Percival says.  “Although it looks as though—“

Marinette can’t hear the rest of what Percival says; it’s drowned out by the chatter of gunfire as someone spots her and opens fire, shooting in controlled two- and three-bullet bursts that sing past her head as she dives to the ground atop Bors.

“—squad approaching from your rear—“

“I’m busy, Percival!” Marinette shouts as she empties the clip at the man currently shooting at her.  Most of the bullets miss as he drops to a knee and aims again, but her last round slams into his forehead.  The man collapses as a cloud of red mist and grey bits sprays out behind him.

“Lancelot to all agents, I’m dry,” Marinette hollers as she abandons Bors and sprints towards the dead militant.  She slides to a halt next to the man, rips his rifle free, and settles into a shooting position just as the squad Percival had warned her about trots around the corner.

The AK-47 thumps against her shoulder as she squeezes the trigger, once, twice, three times in quick succession.  A bullet takes the first man to round the corner in the gut; her second shot passes through his throat, blinding the man behind him with scarlet gore; her third misses.  As the blood-blinded man drops flat and starts trying to wipe his eyes free, the third man ducks back behind the wall; Marinette readjusts her aim as he brings his rifle around the corner and sprays bullets in her general direction.  She squeezes the trigger twice more, putting holes in the cinderblock wall with puffs of dust, and man and rifle both drop to the ground.

By now the rest of the squad is moving, though.  The blood-blinded man starts laying down suppressive fire with his own rifle as a second militant leans around the corner and takes aim.  Marinette pops off a couple more shots in their direction, but it’s only delaying the inevitable at this point.  Sooner or later, one of them is going to run out of bullets, and she has a sneaking suspicion that it’s going to be her.

Then there’s a loud clacking _chutta-chutta-chutta_ of automatic fire, and both men collapse.

“Took you long enough, Adrien,” Percival says.  “Hurry up, you two.”

“They’re coming in platoon-level strength,” Adrien says as he rounds the corner with an M249 SAW braced against his shoulder.  His voice is tinny in Marinette’s earpiece.  “I ambushed some of them, but we’ve got maybe two minutes before we’re pinned.”

Marinette and Adrien reach the still-unconscious Bors; Adrien produces a pistol—what at a glance looks to be a nine-millimeter—and a pair of clips from a pocket.

“Really?” she says as she takes the pistol and secures it down the front of her pants; the clips go in her pockets.  “I get the girl gun?”

“There’s a trench twenty meters that way and also we have maybe”—Adrien says, glancing at his watch—“thirty-two seconds now.”

He grabs Bors by an arm and starts hauling.  Marinette stares at him.

“Oh god, what did you do this time,” Marinette says as she brings the rifle up to her shoulder.  A pair of militants run into view, shouting into radios as Adrien and Marinette retreat, but she cuts both down with a burst of fire before they can do much more than that.

“Ten,” Adrien mutters to himself as he rolls Bors into the trench and hops in himself.  “Nine, eight, Lancelot, cover your ears, five, four.”

They hunker down, palms flattened against their ears.

After a moment, Adrien frowns, peeks cautiously over the lip of the trench, then takes his hands from his ears and checks his watch.

“Damn,” he says.  “They must’ve disabled—“

_Ka-whumph-crackle-crackle-crackle._

The explosion is less a noise and more a concussive wave that feels like getting slapped in the face and chest with a wet blanket.  An enormous mushroom cloud blooms over the compound, flaring orange and scarlet through the smoke.  Marinette can hear ammunition cooking off as she stands.

Adrien can’t hear much of anything; he’s swearing loudly as he rocks back and forth on the ground, clutching at an ear.

“Language,” Marinette says.  “Percy, I think you got your LZ.”

“Affirmative,” Percival replies.  “Get ready to duck when I say, I’ll be coming in fast and low.”  He pauses for a moment, and Marinette hears several clicks over her earpiece.  “Right, Adrien, I’ve marked my approach.”

“Fucking ow,” Adrien screams as he stands.  “Acknowledged, Percival!”

He points vaguely at an open spot of field adjacent to a still-intact part of the compound.  “Three hundred meters,” he shouts at Marinette.  He hands off the SAW to her and pulls Bors out of the trench, dragging him as quickly as he can manage.

They’ve made it about halfway before the zip and zing of bullets forces them to drop to a stumbling, duck-walking crouch, and even Marinette’s fire isn’t enough to keep all of the shooters down.

“Percy better get here soon!” Marinette shouts to Adrien as she picks off a man lugging a long rifle into position.  “This clip is getting awfully light!”

Adrien glances up at the sky.  A second later, it’s Marinette’s turn to curse, loudly and fluently, as Adrien grabs her bodily, tosses her atop Bors, and then piles on top of her himself, covering his ears with his hands.

A second after that, Percival roars in at full speed in the company jet, engines rotated forwards at a forty-five degree angle, hot exhaust scorching a pair of lines through the grass as it hurtles towards the compound.  The noise and surprise in and of themselves are weapons; the searing jets of hot air that set a pair of militants on fire and blow several more off of their feet are merely the icing on the cake.

“Okay, time to move, vamoose, exfiltrate, _go!_ ” Adrien roars as he sets Marinette back on her feet and hauls Bors up in a fireman’s carry.  The plane slows to a halt, hovers for a moment, then moves slowly towards them, setting down gently on its wheels as bullets _ping_ and _spang_ off of its fuselage.  Percival pops out of the door with a rifle and adds the weight of his suppressive fire to Marinette’s own as Adrien clambers up the stairs, Marinette close behind.

“A little warning about your approach would have been nice,” Adrien growls, his voice a little louder than usual, as Percival hops back into the cockpit.

“I gave you a warning,” Percival says as he pushes the throttle to the maximum and flies them away.

“Not enough of one,” Adrien says.  “Where do you want Bors?”

“Hold onto him for a moment while I engage the autopilot,” Percival says.  “Excellent work blowing the armory, by the way.  Stupid and reckless, but good work.  Damn shame you aren’t an official Kingsman.”

“Hey, they had the explosives and the detonators, would’ve been a shame to waste it,” Adrien says as the plane levels off and Percival comes and helps him with the limp Bors.

“Plane,” Percival says to the empty air, “authorization Lima-Alpha Kilo-November Two.  Surgical suite.”

A set of heavy plastic curtains unspool from the ceiling as several seats fold up and slide together, their backs forming a narrow, waist-height table that Adrien drops Bors onto with a grunt of effort.

“Right, either of you know how to fly a plane?” Percival says as he starts cutting the rags and tatters of Bors’ suit away.

“I have my license,” Adrien says.

“Right,” Percival says, snapping on a pair of gloves.  “Adrien, go and buckle yourself into the pilot’s seat and get some sleep, the plane will wake you when we’re on approach.  Girl, come here and help me.”

“The name is Lancelot, Percy,” Marinette says irritably.

“As far as I’m concerned you’re a poor replacement,” Percival says.

“Hey, I did my training, I’ve been in the field.”

“Three times.”

“Hey, hey,” Adrien says, moving in between the two.  “I’ll help, Lancelot can bring us in, I’ve never flown anything bigger than a Cessna.”

“Don’t be daft, Adrien, your hands are the size of shovels,” Percival says.  “There’s some deep wounds here that I can’t reach and she’s got smaller hands.”

Marinette waves Adrien off.  “It’s all right,” she says, “go on.”

Percival points to previously-hidden drawers.  “All right,” he says.  “Go to the washroom, soap up to the elbows, air-dry.  Gloves here, masks and face shields here.  I’ll get started on disinfecting and cataloguing the injuries, then we’ll start on excising the gangrenous flesh.”

Adrien walks into the cockpit as Marinette starts cleaning up, buckles himself in, and passes out a minute later.

* * *

He wakes up briefly to land them at a private airfield, watching through the front windscreen as a medical team hurries onboard and offloads Bors.  They refuel quickly and take off for England.

Marinette comes in just as he’s finished programming the autopilot, buckling herself into the copilot’s seat and closing the door behind her.

“Percival’s asleep,” she says quietly.  “You should get some rest, too, I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

“I already got a couple hours,” he says.  “You, on the other hand, Lancelot,” he says, punching her lightly on the shoulder, “have been up for far too long.”

She doesn’t reply for a little while.

“What’s Merlin done?” she says finally.  “You’re a Kingsman, I know, but he hasn’t told anyone which one you are.  And you aren’t correcting anyone.”

Adrien keeps his eyes forward and his expression blank.

“Adrien.”

“Fine,” he sighs.  He glances at her.  “Merlin swore me to secrecy.  Right before we left, he told me that there was a time and a place for things and told me to keep my gob shut.”

“That’s somewhat more mysterious and vague than he usually is,” Marinette notes.

“Wizards move in mysterious ways,” Adrien says, waggling his fingers at her.  Marinette swats at them with a gentle smile on her face, but he catches her hand in his own and grips it firmly.

“How _are_ you going to be a secret agent anyways?” Marinette says after an awkward moment.  “I mean, you’re a model, I’ve been seeing your face around the city for most of my adult life.”

“Less secret agent, more special ops, I suspect,” Adrien says.  “Things do tend to explode around me.”

He releases her hand as a flush starts to spread across her cheeks.

“Sleep,” he says firmly.  “I’ll bring us in safely.”

Marinette drops off maybe ten minutes later, her chin sinking gently down onto her chest.

* * *

 

Adrien sees her next a week after their return to England.

“Someone’s been staying up,” Marinette comments as he trudges into Kingsmen headquarters with dark bags under his eyes.  He reaches out and flicks her lightly on the bridge of her glasses.

“I prefer napping,” he mutters as he fishes his own glasses from his breast pocket and dons them.

“Come on,” she says with a small smile.  “Merlin and Percival are waiting on us.”  He follows her upstairs.

As they reach the meeting room, Adrien darts in front of her and opens the door for her with a gallant bow; she elbows him lightly as she goes in.

Marinette seats herself before Adrien has a chance to pull her chair out for her.  He closes the door with a nod towards Fu, standing in the corner.  Percival gives him a regal nod of greeting, which Adrien returns.

“Seat yourself to Lancelot’s right, if you please,” Fu says, indicating the chair at the end of the long table.  Adrien sits.

With a few quick taps on his tablet, Fu begins the meeting.  With a low hum, the other seats become occupied with pale blue, shimmering people.

Adrien and Marinette don’t need to bother with the little virtual nametags hovering next to each agent’s head.  To Marinette’s immediate left sits a ghostly blue Geraint, a lean, spare man with a tanned complexion and an axe-like nose, his hair a mass of auburn curls.  One seat to Geraint’s right sits Gareth, a short, stout man with a carefully blank expression; his big hands are folded on the table in front of him.  Gaheris sits across from them, younger-looking than either of them, springy with unreleased tension.  At the seat to the left of where Arthur would normally sit is Tristan, his face lean and pinched but beginning to fill out again now that he’s been rescued.  Percival sits across from Tristan, his grey hair neatly combed across his head; Bors, to Percival’s right, is leaning back in a wheelchair, a cannula inserted into this nose.  Trying to interpose the physical chair and the projected image makes something twinge in Adrien’s eyes for a second.

A glass of brandy sits just to the right of each Kingsman.

Eight of fourteen.  Nine of fifteen if you wanted to count Merlin.

“The first order of business,” Fu says, “is to select the new Arthur.”  Adrien’s hand tightens momentarily as Merlin taps a few more buttons on his tablet, causing hidden panels in the tabletop to slide away, revealing touchscreens.  “Write down your candidate, please.”

Adrien reaches down, plucks out the stylus, and writes down a name.  Marinette takes a second more than he does to think, but scribbles a name down before placing the stylus back in its recessed holder.

Fu’s tablet gives a quiet _ping_ as Bors finishes laboriously and settles back into his wheelchair.

“Oh, damn,” he mutters as he glances down.

“What’s the matter, Merlin?” Gaheris asks.

“One vote for Percival,” Fu says, “and three for Bors.  The remainder go to me.”

A low chuckle runs along the table as Fu glares at them.  “All right, which of you buggers did this?” he growls.

“Now, now,” Percival says, his tone amused even if his expression projects nothing but relaxed calm, “you know that you cannot compel us to reveal how we voted.”

“I rejected the position last time for good reasons,” Fu says.  “Reasons that stand even now.”

“That is, of course, your right,” says Tristan.  “Consider, however, that you are the eldest and most experienced Kingsman alive, and that you’ve managed to guide Kingsmen ably enough for almost three months now.”

“Hear hear,” Adrien says lowly.  Fu glares at him.

“Any opposed?” Fu says, looking around the table.  Eight Kingsmen look back at him with varying degrees of impassiveness.

Adrien glances to his left.  Scratch that, seven Kingsmen; Marinette is hiding a smile behind her hand, poorly.

“Very well.  Of course, now we need to appoint a new Merlin.”

“We need to _find_ a new Merlin, you mean,” Geraint says.  “None of us have your qualifications.”

“I’ll take up the position in the interim,” Bors wheezes.  The other Kingsmen look in his direction.

“Look,” he says, a hint of a brogue making its way into his voice, “I’m missing a leg up to the knee and a foot, they had to take a lung out it was too badly damaged, and I’m never going to regain full use of my right hand.  The only part of me that still works fine is my head, and I can at least use that for now until we find someone more capable.”

“I’ll second him,” Percival says.

“Accord,” Gaheris rumbles.

“Very well,” Fu says after a moment’s hesitation.  “The second order of business.”

Fu moves to Arthur’s seat, pulls it out, and sits carefully.  He picks up the glass of brandy; the rest of the Kingsmen follow suit, Bors a bit stiffly.

“To the fallen,” Fu says.  “To Galahad, to Bedivere, to Gawain, to Kay, to Lamorak.”

“To the fallen,” the Kingsmen echo.  Adrien coughs a little as the brandy sears its way down his throat.

“The third order of business,” Fu says.  “I have taken the liberty of compiling a list of potential candidates; you will be sent—“

“Hold on,” Percival interjects, leaning forwards in his seat, frowning slightly.  “This is not how things are done, Mer—Arthur.”

“It is not how we do things,” Fu says, putting no emphasis on the correction.  “To select one recruit in the old fashion would take months, and the world is not content to give us that time.  If Kingsmen is to be restored in time to make a difference, then a trial by fire must suffice.”

“It’s not just that,” Geraint says.  “It takes those months to convince them of the need for secrecy.  We can’t just approach people who might betray our existence the moment they know of us.”

“Hence why most of the candidates are drawn internally,” Fu says.  “I believe we need not worry about them.”

“And of the ones from outside?” Bors says laboriously.

“Kingsmen has measures,” Fu says, “to deal with those who would subvert our cause.”

Fu taps a button on his tablet, very gently.  His gaze lands on Adrien.

Seven faces turn towards Adrien; seven pairs of eyes drift upwards to a space just above his right shoulder, next to his ear; seven pairs of eyes widen in sudden, somewhat horrified comprehension.

“Gentlemen,” he says.  “A pleasure to properly meet you.”

“I am Mordred.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let’s just say that Kingsmen headquarters has undergone a bit of refurbishment in the three months that Fu’s been the de facto leader, shall we?


End file.
